Program

Jiri Weiss Retrospective

A retrospective season of films made by the Czech film-maker Jiri Weiss who died
on 10 April this year.

Jiri Weiss’s impressive film career set off in 1936 when his amateur documentary People in the Sun won an award at the Venice Film Festival.

Working in London for a film group partly financed by Jan Masaryk, Weiss captured on film the life of Czechs in exile, particularly the political group around president Benes or Czech soldiers and RAF pilots.

It is thanks to him that we know not only scores of Czech soldiers‘ faces but also their everyday life and training.

Following the War, Weiss returned to Czechoslovakia and devoted himself to feature films, particularly after his psychological drama about a young girl in love with her undecisive stepfather Wolf Trap (1957) was awarded by film critics at the Venice IFF.

After the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, Jiri Weiss was forced to leave again. This time he settled in the US and devoted himself to teaching film directing and acting at Hunter College, New York and in Santa Barbara. He returned in 1990 to shoot his last film Martha and I.